


if you kiss me, i'll taste antifreeze

by saturnsage



Series: Industrialized Violence [2]
Category: Fallen Hero Series - Malin Rydén
Genre: Gen, Mentions of Violence, mentions of vomiting, suggestive scenes, that gay stuff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-24
Updated: 2019-02-24
Packaged: 2019-11-04 15:04:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,179
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17900387
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/saturnsage/pseuds/saturnsage
Summary: Delicate situations call for delicate equipment.





	if you kiss me, i'll taste antifreeze

**Author's Note:**

> this series isn't chronological bc im not mathematical enough for that

Chen has a closet full of metal and screws and nails and hammers. it smells of windshield wiper fluid and of static, the air so pungent with raw technology he can taste it. It’s a graveyard of old broken prosthetics and mods that Chen used and reused and tinkered with. 

  
  
Trust him to shove the most expensive, important parts of his work into a closet to let it rot and wither after it’s purpose is over.

 

Staying in Chen’s apartment is a bigger thing than either of them pretend it is. The act of giving away the keys and opening the door and letting him in is like saying that you can see the side of him no one does, not even Chen himself. He can’t help but remember that conversation they had in the office, when the shock of still being alive bounced against the both of them. 

  
  
Mind-reading is like letting someone into their apartment. You can’t start rifling through every drawer, or pull out the bathroom tiles, but the possibility is there. 

  
  
Chen has a closet full of multi-million, out of commission modded prosthetics. he’s got his trash drawer right under his sink. Spoon has a bed in the living room, next to the couch, but Spoon always sleeps on the edge of the bed.

   
  
“Park.” Chen says, smooth, stirring a cup of coffee next to him. “Penny for your thoughts?”

 

“Why do always get new mods?” He asks, holding his own cup. Arabica, three spoons of sugar, two milks. “I mean, your regular ones work fine.” 

  
  
He knows this, intimately. Today he tried to dismantle the mayor’s building to gain some crumb of information concerning the Farm, and it resulted in a file of papers too encrypted to read right then and there, the mention of Hollow Ground, and Steel bursting through the building to land a hit right on his helmet. His head rang for three hours, and it took Zaza shooting three guards and Rosie slamming the car through three highways to get out. He threw up maybe twice, and his foot started burning so much that he couldn’t even walk with his cane. 

  
  
If Chen noticed Park’s more exaggerated leaning into the cane, which he certainly did, he didn’t mention it. If he saw the headache relief medicine open out by the bathroom sink, which he certainly did, he didn’t mention it. All he did was walk in and start brewing coffee, one for him and one for Park. There were never hellos when they were together, nor goodbyes. Just acknowledgment of each other’s existence and pressed atmospheres of awareness.

  
Chen hums. It’s a low thing, nice and smooth and rumbled. His voice is a nice one when he lets the stiffness go. “Contracts, mostly. Investments. Sometimes they want to experiment. I can’t really say no.” 

  
  
closets full of mechanical exoskeletons. coffee on top of a linoleum kitchen. the whirrs of vacuums pressed against dead skin to build a babylonian tower from steel and iron in the shape of limbs. Chen’s nothing but signed contracts and million dollar investments and experiments he can’t say no to if he wanted to say no. 

  
  
It makes Jie-Sun so angry he thinks about pouring the hot coffee onto his face, get it in his hair and singe the scars hidden under there. Experimental machines, their common ground, their drifting. 

  
  
Chen once said that after his third surgery he was so scared of breaking something that he didn’t touch anything except to punch it for two weeks straight, up until Anathema bowled him over with a blanket and a cat and told him to hold the two. He adopted a dog a few months later, just as keyed-up from  competition as him. 

  
  
Jie-Sun can’t imagine what it was like back in the army for him. Full-limbed, hot to touch, with a mouth that was always waiting to laugh. They just took Wei Chen, and snapped him in bits, and rebuilt him. 

  
  
This is their common ground. This is their togetherness. 

  
  
“You’re thinking again,” He says. You look up to him. He’s got his eyes dulled, soft and house-safe. There is no antagonism in these walls, under these roofs. Just mutual understanding, mutual attraction. 

  
  
 _‘I wish you’d stop thinking yourself into circles_ ,’ Chen thinks, not out loud, but Jie-Sun hears it anyways. ‘ _It’s probably not healthy. I wish you’d just relax, smile more. I don’t really like the frown, because it doesn’t let me trust you.’_

 _  
  
_Then he thinks: _‘I have an idea.’_

  
  
“I’m always thinking. It’s a thing.” Park says, curious at the thoughts. 

  
  
“Mm. Sometimes the upgrades the doctors gave me weren’t necessarily for fighting, actually.” Chen breaks the subject abruptly, sipping the coffee coolly. “Since I’m under contract, I can’t refuse them.” 

  
  
Park can’t read what Chen means, because Chen’s built up a sort of immunity to the telepathy. Not immunity exactly, but more like a loophole. A needle hole that Park can’t get through. A twisting of thoughts incomprehensible, thoughts more kinetic and visual rather than primal and verbal, jumps of subjects too frayed and different paced than usual. 

  
  
It’s when Chen gets like this when the walls of the apartment go warmer, and the taste of possible challenge starts to flicker in his bones. The looming idea of going head to head in the safety of mutual understanding, mutual attraction. Park bites the hook, the bait, and the line all at once. 

  
  
“…Ok?” Jie-Sun answers, lips twitching in interest. “Like what?” 

  
  
Chen puts down the cup on the countertop, and walks out, motioning for him to follow. And since Jie-Sun’s swallowed the hook and the line and is steadily gaining toward the hand itself, he follows. 

  
  
They go to the closet, and Chen ruffles through it all, until he pulls out an unmarked box gray with utility. It’s not old, nor is it dusty, but it’s unremarkable. Chen blows off whatever may have been on it before snatching a screwdriver he uses to reinstall different mods, and looks up to Jie-Sun, eyes unreadable and sharp. He smiles. Jie-Sun swallows, eyes lingering on the box. 

  
  
“Like this.” Chen says, softly. “I’ll need assistance trying to load it on, though.”

  
  
Jie-Sun looks into Chen’s eyes for an answer. His thoughts say nothing but ‘ _Wait and see.’_ Like he already knows what Park’s trying to do.  “What is it?” He asks nicely. 

  
  
“Wait and see.” The shorter man answers. Without ceremony he walks to the bedroom, jumping over a sleeping Spoon on the living room floor with a small apology.

 

And since Jie-Sun’s swallowed the hook and the line and is steadily gaining toward the hand itself, he follows. Something tells him to close the door to the bedroom after he walks in, so he does. Chen raises an eyebrow, but doesn’t frown. 

  
  
He nods for Park to come over, and opens the box, pulling out two hands still shiny with the never-been-used look. They’re ceramic looking at first, with a smooth exterior and rounded joints. The wires are barely visible, and the attachments seem small and almost delicate. The hands themselves are smaller, with thinner, longer fingers. They’re unpainted, so the shine of metal glints against the afternoon sun streaming down the windows of the bedroom. Chen tosses one for Jie-Sun to catch, which he does. Against his own calloused hands, they feel feather-light and easily breakable. 

  
  
Chen’s already unscrewing his usual prosthetic hands, they looking big and bulky and impossibly heavy against the smaller, newer ones. He’s got a small smile one, and his eyes burn bright with the prospect of something. 

  
  
“You’ve never used these?” Jie-Sun says, because he doesn’t know what to make of them. 

  
  
“Hell no.” Chen answers. “Never needed to.” 

  
  
“What are they for?” 

  
  
“ _Delicate situations.”_ His tone of voice is brisk, condescending. Clearly making fun of whoever said those words, clearly having fun, clearly not giving him and information to shed light to the situation.

  
  
Jie-Sun watches the swift movements of Chen snapping off his usual hand, and then clicking on the new one, and screwing that one in with an old screwdriver. It’s fascinating, it’s military, this fast routine Chen has. Building up his own armor, every single day, every single hour. Chen carefully places the unattached hand on the nightstand next to the bed. 

  
  
Park flips over the metal hand over, and studies the back of it. In the middle, right where usually the wrist and the palm would meet, theres a small, discreet button. Pressing it does nothing.

  
  
Jie-Sun snuffs the flash of annoyance and frustration, and focuses again on Chen, who’s completely absorbed and silent on his work. He sighs, and flops down on the bed, stretching to his full height and hearing his back pop in more than one place. Chen says nothing, but takes the second hand Park holds and places it on his lap. 

  
  
It’s silent for a few minutes, with the clinks of metal, Chen’s soft breathing, and the muffled outside sounds of the city for company. He watches Chen’s back rise and fall with each breath, interested in the lines of muscle that are visible under the white cotton of his shirt. Without prompting, without realizing, he starts to gently trace the moving shoulder blades, and trails his bored, lazy hand up and down his back. Chen’s breathing stops for one second, and one second alone, before pointedly starting again. 

  
  
‘ _Impatient_.’  The man thinks, and Jie-Sun thinks a: ‘ _No, just intrigued,’_ before realizing his own thoughts can’t be heard.

 

  
“Alright, done.” Chen says, amusement trickling through. He twists around to look at a lying Jie-Sun, completely stretched out, not a sliver of skin showing anywhere. “C’mere.” 

  
  
“Nah, don’t want to move.” 

  
  
Chen clicks something on his forearm, and a beep comes from the hands. A small circle flashes blue slightly, signaling that they’re connected to the mainframe. The other hands are forgotten with the screwdriver on the nightstand. Slowly, one by one, the fingers move up and down, testing their connection. “Come here,” He asks again. 

  
  
Jie-Sun places his legs on Chen’s back, challenging. “Nah.” 

  
  
Chen shakes his head, before turning around and grabbing Park’s legs, and pulling him toward the edge of the bed-frame, where he stands. He stares right at Park, black eyes sharp and bright. Park stares right back, brown eyes warm and piercing. 

 

“Asked you to c’mere,” Chen whispers, and stoops down, kissing Park not ungentle.

 

Park’s mouth opens right away, welcome and familiar, easy and slow. The kiss is un-rushed, simmering, mutual understanding and mutual attraction. Chen breaks off after a few moments, and his eyes, already dark, darken further. 

  
  
“Felt like being difficult,” Park answers, raspy already, smiling. 

  
  
“You’re always difficult,” Chen replies, and Park hums, lifting Chen’s shirt lazily, running his palms up the valleys and the rises of his chest. Everything is solid under his touch, bumpy where scars are and smooth where they aren’t, moving constantly in rhythm with his heartbeat and his breathing. Park lets his hands travel, lets his eyes roam over Chen’s face looming over head, and lets himself be scooped up the bed so Chen manages to straddle his waist in a comfortable position. The strength Chen has was never unappreciated. Recognized, and irritating during work hours, sure, but never unappreciated back here.  “It’s part of your charm.” 

  
  
“Aww,” Jie-Sun sighs, and Chen kisses him again, to keep him quiet. Those new prosthetics start fiddling with Jie-Sun’s sweater, cool and smooth against the heated skin underneath. His breathing hitches at the feeling, still unused to being so casually touched with all of those scars and those tattoos littering the expanse of his figure. It’s something he’s working on. It’s something Chen’s helping him with. The sweater comes off. So does the shirt. So does Chen’s shirt. So does all the rest. They both have more scar than skin. Mutual understanding. Mutual attraction.

 

Mouth moves against mouth, soft sighs and huffed breaths making way for Chen to go lower, down to jaw, down to neck, down to shoulder blades, biting gently, kissing the small sting better. It’s not hard enough to leave marks, because Chen thinks that Park’s got enough marks to last him a lifetime enough. It’s appreciated, it’s understood. 

  
  
Down to shoulder blade, down to chest, down to torso, down to stomach. It’s near feverish, how heated both their bodies are. Chen’s mechanics whirr with the ventilation. His breaths skitter across your stomach, tracing their versions against your tattoos. 

  
  
“Delicate situations,” Chen rasps, and backs arch up. He sits up, not looking away from brown eyes burning amber and sienna in the midst of it all, and lifts one hand for Park to see it, and presses a button where the wrist conjoins the palm with the other. The hand, faintly, begins to buzz, and Chen grins. 

  
  
“God, Wei,” Park hitches, and since he’s swallowed the bait, the hook, the line, the hand, the arm, and everything in between of it all, he allows himself to be buried under, to be drowned, to be relieved.

 

**Author's Note:**

> shout out to that one guy that keeps commenting on my fallen hero fics. i see you, i've already written a love letter for you, this one is for u. xx


End file.
